Auguste Lechner (2 January 1905, Innsbruck, Austria - 25 February 2000, Innsbruck, Austria) was an Austrian writer. Many of her works were aimed at an adolescent audience.

Life

Born Auguste Neuner, Lechner studied languages at the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

. In 1927, she married the managing director of the

Tyrolia Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

publishing company, Hermann Lechner. Their son Hansjörg was born in 1930. During the 1930s, she published folk stories in various magazines, and after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

she began to write books for teenage readers, concentrating predominantly on retelling classical and medieval legends and myths. Her extremely wide range of adaptations drew from Ancient

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Roman myths Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representat ...

(

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted th ...

, the

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

, the

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...

, the

Golden Fleece In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece ( el, Χρυσόμαλλον δέρας, ''Chrysómallon déras'') is the fleece of the golden-woolled,, ''Khrusómallos''. winged ram, Chrysomallos, that rescued Phrixus and brought him to Colchis, wh ...

and the

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

) as well as ( King Arthur, The Song of the Nibelungs,

Roland Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...

and

Parzival ''Parzival'' is a medieval romance by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Parzival (Percival in English) and his long qu ...

). With estimated total sales of over a million, she was one of the most successful authors writing in German, and her books have been translated into Dutch, Bulgarian and Korean. Among the well-known artists who provided illustrations for her works were Hans Vonmetz, Maria Rehm, Josef Widmoser and Alfred Kunzenmann.

Critical reception

At the time Lechner was writing, she won considerable praise for her blend of entertainment and education, her mastery of language, her sensitivity to the historical material and the suspense which characterized her works.Johann Holzner,
Auguste Lechner (1905–2000). Zum 100. Geburtstag
. In: Lexikon der Literatur in Tirol und Südtirol, Forschungsinstitut Brenner-Archiv. There was admiration for her ability to make the myths and legends which form an important part of

Western civilization human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Clemetino Inv305.jpg, upPlato, arguably the most influential figure in all of Western philosoph ...

accessible to young readers. Some of the more recent criticism has claimed that she does not explore in sufficient depth the values, customs and perspectives of the period she describes, and that her main characters are stylized and simplified.Auguste Lechner. In: Lexikon Literatur in Tirol. Maria Elisabeth Dorninger: Iwein. Der Ritter mit dem Löwen. Auguste Lechner versus Hartmann von Aue. In: Informationen zur Deutschdidaktik 24 (2000), S. 108–118
/ref> Defenders of her work have pointed out that such criticism is unfair in that the

myths Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrati ...

and

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...

s that she draws upon could also be criticised in this way.

Awards

* 1956 Austrian State Prize for Young Literature * 1978 Listed in the VII Premio Europeo di Letteratura Giovanile, Provincia di Trento * 1983 Order of Merit of the

State of Tyrol Tyrol (; german: Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a state (''Land'') in western Austria. It comprises the Austrian part of the historical Princely County of Tyrol. It is a constituent part of the present-day Euroregion Tyrol–South Tyrol–Trentino ( ...

* 1985

Honorary professorship An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

* 2005 The Song of the Nibelungs named as one of the Top Ten Books for Young People on International Children’s Book Day

Works (selected)

* The Song of the Nibelungs, Told for Our Times, 1951 * The Adventures of

Dietrich von Bern Dietrich von Bern is the name of a character in Germanic heroic legend who originated as a legendary version of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great. The name "Dietrich", meaning "Ruler of the People", is a form of the Germanic name "Theod ...

, 1953 * The Dolomite Sagas, 1955 * The Adventure of Parzifal, 1956 * The Brothers from the Cave – A Prehistoric Adventure, 1959 * The Tales of Odysseus, 1961 * The Story of Wild Hagen, Beautiful Hilde and Gudrun, 1963 * Aeneas, Son of the Goddess, 1967 * The Adventures of Don_Quixote, 1970 * The Saga of Roland, 1972 * The Iliad: The Downfall of Troy, 1973 * The Finest Fables of La Fontaine, 1976 * Hercules: his Adventures for Young People, 1977 * The Saga of the Golden_Fleece, 1980 * The History of King Arthur, 1985 * Alexander the Great, 1995

References

External links

Biography Auguste Lechner

* ttp://orawww.uibk.ac.at/apex/uprod/f?p=TLL:2:0::::P2_ID:410 Work and life of August Lechner, University of Innsbruck {{DEFAULTSORT:Lechner, Auguste 1905 births 2000 deaths Austrian women writers Writers from Innsbruck University of Innsbruck alumni Folklore writers 20th-century Austrian writers 20th-century Austrian women writers